The controlled demolition or fragmentation of rocks has often been performed with explosives. The resulting noise, dust, vibrations and possible flying debris is detrimental not only to the safety of personnel, but also to the environment. In addition, the dangers of storing and handling explosives and the extensiveness of personnel training contributes to the undesirability of using this methodology.
In recent years, non-explosive fragmentation methods have been developed. These methods typically involve drilling cavities into the rock to be fragmented and filling the cavities with a slurry which incorporates a non-explosive demolition agent. The agent expands over time and eventually fragments the rock. However, these methods can be difficult to practice and are often ineffective. For instance, if horizontal cavities are drilled, care must be taken to ensure that the slurry does not leak out. Furthermore, if there are crevices in the rock, the fluid can leak into the crevices and not provide the necessary pressure to fragment the stone. Also, since the expansion of the slurry occurs through a chemical reaction the process can work quite slowly, often in narrow temperature and humidity ranges. Moreover, since the slurry can only be used once, new batches must be used in every rock demolition.
It is therefore desirable to provide new methods and devices that can be used for rock fragmentation, especially those which can be used in residential and business areas, or other areas in which restrictions might be placed on noise, ground vibrations, air blasts, dust or other drawbacks associated with the use of explosives.